This comes on the heels of the NAACP continuing the false narrative that the Tea Party members are racist.

Why would the NAACP do such a thing? It seems that is what members of the Journolist do when they want a person or organziation to stop making progress or speak the truth. Throw out the “racist” stigma, and watch the conservative or organization defend itself. Better to have that conversation than the reason why our economy is in deep trouble.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists.”

I suppose it started with Congressmen Andre Carson and John Lewis and other Congressional Black Caucus members who staged a walk through the Tea Party crowd in front of the capitol the day before the health care vote. The Congressmen’s aids (note that the actual Congressmen never said they heard slurs) claimed that the N word was hurled at them fifteen times. Since then all video of the incident shows no such thing occurred, and an offer of a $100,000 award to anyone who can prove it was said has not been claimed.

To me it was clearly a manufactured plan to paint the Tea Party as racist so the focus would be off the cost of the bill, and the government takeover of health care.

What happens when the left starts throwing around the term “racist”? They get the same thrown back at them. But this time an innocent woman (it seems to me) got caught in the crossfire.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture demanded the resignation of Shirley Sherrod after this video surfaced. But like a lot of videos and out of context statements, there is more to this story. Yes, she did let race keep her from helping the farmer as she would have if he had been black, but this happened 24 years ago when she was working for a non profit. This is what she told CNN:

SHERROD: I was speaking to that group like I’ve done many groups, and I tell them about a time when I thought the issue was race and race only. And I tell them the story of how I’ve worked with a white farmer back in 1986. I was not working for the Department of Agriculture. I was working with a non-profit organization assisting farmers throughout South Georgia and the Southeast. And this farmer came to me for help. I was telling the story about how working with him helped me to see that the issue is not about race, it’s about those who have versus those who do not have.

She ended up being close friends with the farmer in question.

She was describing a teaching moment. If one listens to the rest of the speech, we understand that. It said to me that she had learned her lesson on not looking at the race of someone, but who they are.

I’m ashamed that Breitbart has sunken to the level that the left play. The left routinely take sentences out of context, cut audio or video, and vilify people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. Not to mention Sarah Palin. We’ve come to expect it. But we don’t need to cut audio or video. If we start doing that, then we become what we hate.

The administration and the NAACP quickly denounced Sherrod without giving her a chance to explain or to watch the full tape. It’s sad that we have come to this.

How about this. We all stop throwing around the term “racist?” Enough is enough. The left needs to stop trying to change the conversation with untrue accusations on race, and conservatives need to not get on the bandwagon of this tit for tat smear campaigns.

Update: I saw Breitbart on Sean Hannity last night and he did say that this wasn’t about Sherrod. It was about the reaction of the NAACP crowd. He said he never asked that she be fired. Still, this woman did get caught in the crossfire.

I think Breitbart was trying to say to the NAACP that conservatives aren’t going to take charges of racism lying down anymore. He proved that we can play that game too. There will always be racists or insensitive people out there on both sides. We are tired of the false narrative. In that respect I can see Breitbart’s point. I just wish a woman hadn’t been fired because of it.

Update II: An imporant thing to remember here is that while the White House was demanding that she pull over on the side of the road and “resign now,” and the NAACP was putting out a press release attacking her, It was Glenn Beck and bloggers like myself defending her.